Recent reports indicate up to 40,000 innocent civilian where killed at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war at the beginning of 2009 and a further 20,000 are now amputees, as a result of the indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombardment by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

The Sri Lankan government waged a war without witness conducted in the name of a war on terror, but in truth it was nothing short of a war of terror against the innocent civilians.

Towards the end of the war over 350,000 civilians were trapped in a so called safety zone an area which had been designated by government, they were under daily air strikes and shelling by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The government used food, water and medicine as a weapon of war against the Tamil civilians.

Due to the lack of medical supplies doctors sometimes had to perform amputations even on babies without anesthetics or pain killers, with nothing more than a butchers knife.

As reports have shown, the war in Sri Lanka bared striking similarities to that of Vietnam, with the bombing by the Sri Lankan government of innocent civilians, schools, temples, orphanages, hospitals and refugee camps.

However as the government had removed all the International Aid workers from the region where the conflict had been taking place and barred the media. The world was mostly oblivious to the scale of the atrocities that took place.

A number of credible reports have also exposed that the government had been using banned weapons against the civilian areas. Weapons such as phosphorus, cluster bombs, fire bombs and various other chemical agents.

Since the end of the war up to 300,000 Tamil IDP's (internally displaced persons) were illegally detained in atrocious conditions in concentration camps in the northern region. Where rape murder and executions regularly took place. After massive international pressure most have now been allowed to leave but 80,000 still remain having no home to go too. Many of those who have returned to their homes have been refused by the Army to be allowed to resettle and rape, executions and disappearances continue to take place. These Tamil people have been traumatised by the war many of them have lost there families and now they live in fear under the control of the same people who murder and killed their loved ones.

Amnesty International and other Human Rights organisations blames Government and its supporters for the continuing violation of human rights including the extrajudicial killings, abductions, and imprisonment of community leaders, members of parliament, human rights activists, humanitarian workers and media personnel. They have also all expressed grave concerns of War Crimes which were committed at the end of the war and call for action to be taken.

Act Now believes that those responsible of committing War Crimes must be brought to justice and the only way forward is a negotiated political settlement that will allow Tamils and Sinhalese to live peacefully on the Island. This would include a UN supervised Referendum for Tamils on self-determination i.e. on Independence, Federalism or Integration.

Act Now’s Campaigns have been supported by over 55 MP’s, a number of MEP’s and a long list of top celebrities including Bob Geldoff, Massive Attack, Joanna Lumley, M.I.A , Brian May (of Queen),Sian Evans (singer Kosheen) and a number of top models such as Jasmine Guinness and Jade Parfit.